Why did Zhang Chunru commit suicide? She is a person worth remembering all her life!

On the morning of June 9th, 2004, Zhang Chunru, who became the most famous Chinese-American best-selling author with the book Nanjing Massacre: The Forgotten World War II Massacre, committed suicide by swallowing a gun in his car in California.

Zhang Chunru is the first Chinese-American woman writer who exposed the historical truth of the Nanjing Massacre to the western society.

Zhang Chunru was only 36 when he shot himself. Her son is only two years old. For her parents, the sudden death of her daughter is a lingering shadow in her life.

"After our daughter died, we didn't know how to live." White-haired people send black-haired people, and life is the saddest. Even two years after her daughter's death, Zhang Fu, who was interviewed by reporters, still looked sad: "For more than two years, we have been asking ourselves every day, why did she commit suicide? I don't know how many times I asked. The answer is no answer. "

Zhang Chunru was born in Kochi family in New Jersey, USA from 65438 to 0968. Both parents are doctors, and they are new immigrants from Taiwan Province Province to the United States in 1950s and 1960s.

The name "pure as" is taken from the Analects of Confucius: "Shun it, pure as", which means "harmony and beauty".

Zhang Chunru was gifted. When he was young, he was excellent in character and study, especially in writing. During my school days, I worked very hard, and excellent works poured in. From 65438 to 0995, Zhang Chunru published his first work, The Mystery of Qian Xuesen, the Father of China's Missiles. His works published as a student became a rare young talent in the United States, and he embarked on the road of professional writers.

When I first heard about the Nanjing Massacre, Zhang Chunru was still a little girl. Through her parents' dictation, she first learned about the Nanjing Massacre.

She later recalled in the book: "My parents have never witnessed the Nanjing Massacre, but they have heard these stories since childhood and passed them on to me. So I know that the Japanese not only cut the baby in half, but also cut it into three or four sections; They also said that within a few days, the Yangtze River was dyed red with blood. My parents' voices trembled with resentment. According to their description, the Nanjing Massacre was the poorest and most brutal event that killed thousands of people in China during the Japanese War. "

1994 65438+February 13, Stanford University held a conference to commemorate the victims of the Nanjing Massacre, during which Zhang Chunru visited the Nanjing Massacre photo exhibition. She saw with her own eyes those "undisguised black-and-white images: beheaded heads, disemboweled abdominal cavities and naked women, whose soldiers forced them to make various erotic gestures, and their faces showed unforgettable expressions of pain and humiliation".

These bloody materials awakened her childhood nightmare memories, and she immediately decided to record the Nanjing Massacre as her unshirkable responsibility and write the truth of history with her life.

"The title of this book is reported by herself. At first, she got very little start-up capital, only a few thousand pieces, but she immediately went to Nanjing and never thought about money. "

She shouted for this: "I believe that the truth will eventually come out. Truth is indestructible, truth has no national boundaries, and truth has no political inclination. We must work together to ensure that the truth is preserved and remembered, so that tragedies like the Nanjing Massacre will never happen again. "

In order to write A Dream of Red Mansions, Cao Xueqin spent ten years mourning for Hongxuan, adding and deleting five times. Zhang Chunru wrote the Nanjing Massacre, which lasted for three years and was revised several times. Sometimes, in order to examine the authenticity of a plot, she not only has to search a lot of information, but also has to make field trips again and again. And try our best to let more people know about the human catastrophe that happened in 1930s with plain and powerful language, so that the European and American worlds can truly understand the terrible history that happened in China during World War II.

1997, Zhang Chunru's Nanjing Massacre was published. It is the first English book that comprehensively records the Japanese atrocities against Nanjing. Once published, it shocked the western world. The gruesome scenes in human history are exposed to the world, and the strong shock wave caused by them is like detonating a deep-water bomb. It has been listed as a * * * bestseller for five consecutive months. It was reprinted more than ten times in the following years, and nearly one million copies have been printed so far.

"* * *" commented: "If this book helps to fill the gap of war atrocities, it also has some far-reaching significance: a cultural and political awakening to the Pacific War and Japan's guilt."

Kirby, head of the history department of Harvard University, said in the preface of the book, "This is the first time in 60 years that Americans are aware of the existence of this war crime atrocity. What she has done is what countless American male writers or historians who write in English have not done. "

Once she went to San Francisco to attend an international academic seminar. The topic of her speech is "Nanjing * * *". On the spot, two Japanese people stood up and attacked her severely. Zhang Chunru argued that the irrefutable facts left two Japanese speechless and finally fled the meeting.

1998, the Japanese ambassador to the United States made a public statement, slandering the Nanjing Massacre as a "very wrong description". Zhang Chunru was interviewed with Saito Kunihiko on the "Jim Lille News Program" and refuted it on the spot, giving the other side a powerful counterattack.

After talking about this, my mother Zhang Yingying's tone was full of pride: "She is very tough and responsive. Her English is very good and fluent, and the Japanese apologized on the spot. "

This debate clarified the truth of history, and Zhang Chunru, who showed extraordinary courage, was personally received by then US President Bill Clinton. The American public began to generally regard her as a "human rights fighter."

A few years later, Zhang Chunru's death made Chinese in North America and the whole society very sad and sorry. At that time, there were 198 newspapers and magazines in the United States that reported this. The homepage of Zhang Chunru's personal website was painted black, leaving only the words "in memory of Zhang Chunru 1968-2004".

Black as paint, mourning for the people of Sri Lanka alone.

Many local overseas Chinese leaders said: "As far as the influence on mainstream American society is concerned, the sum of the efforts of many Chinese groups over the years 10 is not as strong as Zhang Chunru's book!"

Before his death, Zhang Chunru had a strong desire to make the Nanjing Massacre into a real Hollywood movie, so that more people could understand and accept that almost forgotten history. At that time, she also fantasized that she could write more related works, but unexpectedly, when many of her ambitions were not realized, she ended her life forever.

In people's imagination, this woman who wrote "Nanjing Massacre" should be as strong and fearless as a soldier; In the memory of relatives and friends, she is beautiful, kind and enthusiastic. They don't believe that Zhang Chunru will die in this way, just as they don't believe that she has left forever.

Writer Ye Hong, a former friend of Zhang Chunru, recalled an exclusive interview with Zhang Chunru in Los Angeles, USA, sketched a beautiful segment of Zhang Chunru's life that was unknown to the public for readers, and turned it into a conclusion: "She came to this world to express a true voice."

Three days before Zhang Chunru committed suicide, they were still communicating by email. Three days later, she died, died and left the world she once loved so much.

Before she died, she left a note that read: "I lived seriously and made sincere contributions to my goals, writing and my family."

In 2007, it was the anniversary of the announcement of the Nanjing Massacre 10. Since the end of 2006, Canadian female directors anne pick has started filming the documentary Zhang Chunru.

Anne Peak emphasized: "History has no national boundaries. The Nanjing Massacre was a crime against humanity. The world should know this history. We hope to preserve and spread the historical truth through the lens. "

In this documentary, Japanese right-wingers arrogantly argued in front of the camera: "The Nanjing Massacre did not exist. We don't admit that you are all fabricated. Zhang Chunru's book is fiction. You China people colluded. We only killed thousands of people in your China. "

Zhang Chunru was reviled and cursed by many Japanese. In addition, she also received many threatening letters and phone calls from Japanese right-wingers.

A reporter once worried: "Are you afraid?"

She replied: I am not afraid!

"Not afraid at all?"

Her answer is: I'm a writer. If I was afraid, I wouldn't write this book.

Although she wrote the "Nanjing Massacre" with a strong sense of justice and fearless courage, the creation of this 290-page documentary made Zhang Chunru pay a huge price physically, mentally and spiritually. Facing the inhuman history all day, the unimaginable evil of human nature and the arduous task of turning countless materials into history books, she was exhausted and exhausted.

In the process of writing Nanjing Massacre, she often "trembled with anger, suffered from insomnia and nightmares, lost weight and lost all her hair".

When sorting out historical materials, she faced all kinds of cruelty beyond the limits of human beings, such as beheading, burying alive, burning alive, drowning in cesspits, digging hearts and dismembering bodies.

All-encompassing tyranny and cruelty have been "refreshed" again and again in this inhuman massacre.

Regarding Zhang Chunru's mental state before her death, both parents admitted that her daughter suffered from depression: "She was in poor health and couldn't sleep at night. She went to see a psychiatrist twice a week, but it didn't work. "

The subjects of her writing are all events that touch the horror of human nature and shock the soul. From the "Nanjing Massacre" to the history that she later prepared to write about the abuse of American prisoners by the Japanese in World War II, they are all extremely bloody and evil themes.

As a mother, Zhang Yingying was worried that the choice of materials such as the Nanjing Massacre was too heavy for a young girl. After the book was published, she advised her daughter to "stop making such a serious and gloomy theme". But Zhang Chunru said to his mother, "No, I can't refuse the request of veterans who write a book like me. "

Before Zhang Chunru committed suicide, she was searching for her upcoming fourth book, A Death Journey in the Philippines, in order to collect relevant materials.

Her husband revealed that Zhang Chunru had a nervous breakdown after his visit and he was hospitalized for five months. People don't know how many countless sins she has been exposed to and how many dark corners she has discovered. However, this kind of work devoted to excavating the buried history of human beings and exposing human tragedies may be the main source of her depression.

At that time, it was not that she didn't want to get rid of Wang Yang's emotional distress like the sea, and she could face extinction at any time, but she could do nothing.

She expressed this despair in her suicide note: "My breathing is getting harder and harder ... as if I were in an endless sea. I know that my decision will transfer some of my pain to others, especially those who love me deeply. Please forgive me, forgive me, because I cannot forgive myself. "

In an article mourning Zhang Chunru, the American Overseas Chinese News said: "She wanted to hold up the whole sky, but her battlefield was boundless and there were countless enemies ... She sacrificed herself."

In his "I Don't Believe", Kitajima shouted: "I came into this world with only paper, rope and figure, in order to understand the voice of being tried before the trial."

Zhang Chunru had planned to study law after writing. In the future, she will sue Japan on behalf of the survivors of the Nanjing Massacre and demand that Japan compensate them for their losses. Chinese descendants like her in the west must stand up and shout for these survivors.

Die before you realize your ambition, and heroes cry on their coats from now on.

After his death, Zhang Chunru was buried in a cemetery called "The Gate of Heaven" in Los Artus, California. There is a picture of Zhang Chunru smiling like an angel on the tombstone, and the words "Dear wife and mother, writer, historian and human rights fighter" are engraved in Chinese and English respectively.

Mr. Lu Xun said that a true warrior dares to face the bleak life and the dripping blood. She faced it with a weak body and complained like a rafter with a pen. Although the blood is so thick, it is still difficult to breathe and can't see clearly after 80 years, which is suffocating.

The truth written in blood, the history written in ink. The former not only has countless bones and countless murders as evidence, but also needs the latter to clear the fog and look at the sun and the moon positively-how to endure the haze and not let the history of history turn into dust!

Du Mu has such a warning in his "Epang Palace Fu": "Later generations mourn for it but don't learn, which also makes later generations mourn for it again". In view of this, the inscription on the national public sacrifice tripod of the compatriots killed in the Nanjing Massacre warns like this:

Show what happened before and remind future generations.

National public sacrifice, laws and regulations.

Cast a tripod to mourn the country.

Never hesitate to pray for peace.

Chinese dream, national rejuvenation.

No shame and pain can be completely eliminated. In those memories that refuse to sleep, there will always be blood flowing out under the scabbed scars.

However, only when remembering becomes a challenge and defending dignity with strength can we become a writer of world history and a sender of strong human voices.